But the plaintiff demanded to be paid back at $67/day, which he likely won't get.

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A German high court has ruled that the loss of Internet access is comparable to losing a car and is therefore “essential.” As such, users can now claim compensation from their ISP after extended outages.

On Thursday, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe ruled in the case of a German man who was unable to use his home DSL connection (as well as his phone and fax line), for two months between late 2008 and early 2009.

As Reuters reports, “Under German law the loss of use of essential material items can be compensated.”

Specifically, plaintiffs can seek compensation for a loss that “significantly affects the material basis of living.” Such a compensation claim is normally made for a big-ticket item, like the loss of a home or a car.

In this case, the Bavarian plaintiff demanded to be compensated €50 ($67) per day—the Court seemed to think this amount was far too high, particularly given that the man ended up getting a mobile phone and switched ISPs, which were reimbursed by his old ISP.

As his case worked its way through lower courts, the unnamed plaintiff wanted additional compensation beyond being reimbursed for the costs of his mobile phone. The Federal Court reversed (Google Translate) the decision that he couldn't receive additional compensation, sending it back to a district court where the plaintiff may now have a chance of getting that additional award, but likely not at the €50-per-day rate he asked from the court.

"Thus, [the Internet] has become a way of life that most of the population [needs], and whose failure would be significantly noticeable in everyday [use],” the Federal Court wrote in its decision.

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It's been the norm here (US) as far as I know. Every time my internet was down my ISP (Cable Co) credited me for the days it was down.

You're misinterpreting. He's not looking for service credit, he's basically looking for reimbursement for what he missed out on by not being able to have his internet connection. Sort of like how people can receive payment for pain and suffering or lost wages for being injured in an accident. He's basically being compensated for his injury of not having his internet service.

The article is actually missing the bigger story: The highest court in Germany just stated that internet access is essential. This automatically rules out internet cut-off penalties like 3-strikes laws against copyright infringement, because you cannot take away something that's considered a basic necessity.

I guess it could still be possible to prohibit internet access in special cases such as with malicious hackers, but it should be impossible to justify as a general penalty for something as widespread as piracy.

As far as the compensation for lost access goes: That's actually quite good, too. Deutsche Telekom, who still owns most of the last mile infrastructure, is notorious for making the process of switching to another provider as slow and painful as possible, which can include unplanned internet outage if they didn't get the new connection ready by the time the old contract runs out. Being able to get compensation might put end end to that kind of crap.

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Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar